Pico Rivera to Phoenix

On Saturday we started our drive to Houston. We spent considerable time learning our new radio, the Satellite Radio system and Maggie (Magellan RoadMate). They are all pretty awesome, but Maggie is Fantastic!! And, our radio has a remote control. Which is super freaking awesome and I love it!

Anyway. We drove due East on I-10 and we were gonna pretty much stay on it For Freaking EVER! It would take us all the way to Houston, which is easy at least!

We were driving uphill in the desert and on the left side of the freeway we saw …. Dinosaurs. Freaking Huge 25 foot tall Effing Dinosaurs! And a sign that read “Robotic Dinosaur Exhibit”. How can a girl pass that kind of awesome?!? She cant! She NEEDS To Stop!! So, we stopped.

Holy. Crap! That place was crazy! They had exactly ONE Robotic dinosaur. But Whatever. I can live with ONLY one robotic dinosaur. I mean, they have lots of other dinosaurs .. its cool. As we are walking around the outdoor exhibit, in the desert, during a wind storm, at 3600 elevation we saw a mannequin like thingy of a crusader … in the middle of a dinosaur exhibit … ok. Sure, fine, whatever. We keep walking around and checking out the exhibit. The dinosaurs start getting smaller. From Large building sized, monstrosities to small family dog sized annoyances. Also, very strange. But this IS a road-side attraction. A Tourist Trap. They don’t usually have a ton of money. I can see how part-way through the exhibit they began to run out of money and just started to make the dinos smaller, sure. Then. The Best. Thing. Evar! A LARGE Crocodile hanging out with a plastic lion and plastic lamb. Freaking Hilarious!

They had this big cement turtle jungle jim thingy, which was also very strange and confusing. We climbed up inside the large T-Rex, got schooled on Creationism and took pictures of outside from the mouth, which is just cool since there are big teeth in the shots.

Finally we left the Land of the Lost and got back on the road. More uphill. Many more hours. And made it to Phoenix, Arizona. Part of our plan to save money was to sleep in the back of our 4Runner. Neither of us had really done this before and didn’t know how it would turn out. We didn’t know if we would be able to find campgrounds or bathrooms or anything, but figured we couldn’t really afford $50 every night.

We found a KOA in Mesa, which is a little off the I-10, but not far. We set up the back of the 4Runner with WAY too many blankets for the 65 degree weather, found the bathrooms, discovered that we could have showers in the morning – WOOT! – and bunkered down for the night.

It. Was. AWESOME! We were warm, safe, slept like the dead, had access to bathrooms, were surrounded by lots of really nice people and paid Less Than $30 a Night!

It was way awesome. We had a great day, a great night and the trip so far is just plain fun!

Miles today – 390. Total Miles Driven – 790. Miles To Go – 1,150

Kitties Big Adventure To Grandma's House and Other Stories...

Warning – this post is almost entirely about our cats. Sorry – but, it was bound to happen eventually.

Friday we started our trip. Our Big-Ass Trip to just about everywhere in the Universe. Well, sorta everywhere.  The first leg of our trip was from our place in Northern California to Pico Rivera in Southern California. We drove WITH our two cats. They are gonna stay in SoCal with their Grandma while we are away. We weighed LOTS of options and nothing really seemed awesome. The BEST idea we could come up with was traveling with them and staying at Motel 6 along the way so that we could bring them into the room with us. But THAT was a suckie option. Then Danielle’s mom offered to keep them for us. Freaking WOOT!

In preparation to drive the poor kits to LA, we found nifty homeopathic drops that we have started calling Kitty Calm. We also bought catnip tincture. Both cats LOVED the Kitty Calm .. The catnip tincture? Heh, not so much. If you plan on traveling with pets, You NEED To Get This Stuff! Wow!

But, even with the Kitty Calm, the kits were still freaked and cried pretty constantly for the first 20 or 30 minutes, then sporadically for another 30 minutes.  After that, they were mostly ok unless we looked at them or said their names, or stopped the car, and then they would start crying again. And poor Baby Kitty was the worst. She was so pathetic and confused.

Did I mention that Danielle’s mom has a cat? No. No, I didn’t. Well, she does. A freaking insane 13 +/- year old calico. And by “freaking insane” I mean mildly psychotic.

We made really great time to Pico. We unloaded the kitties and like a cracked out dumb-ass, I let both Penny and baby Kitty out of their carriers into the house with the psychalico. No preamble. No introduction. No, I didn’t let them loose in a back bedroom so that they could sniff each other under the door. I just let the kits loose.

Take a wild guess as to how THAT brainfart smelled … go ahead.

Yah.

So, Penny, my 19 year old, deaf, toothless, clawless kitty was cornered by Psychalico. They were under the table and Penny couldn’t get away. I climbed under the table to try and grab Penny. Psychalico was determined to destroy the Interloper-Formerly-Known-As-Penny. She didn’t even see me under the table. I had to swat at her a few times just to get her attention. Once I had it, I wasn’t so sure I wanted it. She looked at me, squared up to me and was fully prepared to take me on.

“Oh Shit”, I thought.

So, I swatted at her a few more times. She didn’t like that much then backed off enough for me to get Penny.

The night ended with us locking Psychalico in the front bedroom with a litter box, food and water.  Penny and Baby Kitty roamed the house and sniffed everything and found all the good hiding places. You see, Penny and Baby Kitty are tiny, skinny kitties and Psychalico is a very VERY fat cat. Portly. Obese. Rotund. Rubenesque. Only, you know, a cat. So Penny and Baby Kitty would be able to get into tiny hidie-holes the Psychalico would NEVER be able get into, just in case Psychalico attacked again. 

Miles Driven - 400. Miles to go - 1,500

The Story Untold ... So Far

I have a story in my head.  A HUGE effing story! If I put the whole thing out there, I think it would be a book, a large-ish book, even. 

I have written pages and pages of character bios and outlines. I know the world, the society, what will happen and why. I even have a whole entire folder on Lappy for the chapters.

Problem is, I havent written the first word of chapter 1. I am absolutely paralyzed with fear.

• I am afraid that I have no idea what I'm doing - and I dont. I have read a lot of books, but written VERY little. 
• I am worried that the story will become unweildy and get away from me
• I am afraid that what I want to write will just not work
• I am afraid that I will change my mind on exactly what I want to write and how I want to present it and have to gut the whole thing - rewrite a bunch of shit
• I am afraid that it will be embarrassingly lame and suckie

So?  I do nothing.  I set up everything in early October.  Havent done a single thing with it since.  I have no excuse.  It isnt like I am busy.

What the hell do I do now?  Shit.